Witt: Possible downtown sites for a judicial center

The spe­cial meet­ing on September 15 of the Clark County Project Development Board was an enlight­en­ing dis­cus­sion about the sta­tus of the pro­posed new judi­cial cen­ter for Clark County. The hear­ing was report­ed by Randy Patrick on WinCity Voices on September 17.

The meet­ing was intend­ed to receive pro­pos­als for a site for the project, and although no pro­pos­als were offered at the meet­ing, per­haps a look at a cou­ple of poten­tial sites might be in order.

As Senator Elkins point­ed out at the meet­ing, the funds appro­pri­at­ed for a new judi­cial cen­ter here can only be expend­ed for that pur­pose — so sug­ges­tions about oth­er needs in Clark County have no bear­ing on this par­tic­u­lar project. Any such dis­cus­sions are nei­ther ger­mane nor help­ful in mov­ing this process forward.

It should be not­ed that the fol­low­ing sug­ges­tions are made with­out con­sid­er­a­tion as to whether the sites are avail­able, whether the own­ers wish to sell them or whether their assessed val­ues would allow them to fit into the project budget.

West Broadway and Maple

The cor­ner of West Broadway and Maple is close to the jail (move­ment of pris­on­ers for court pro­ceed­ings was not­ed as a prime consideration). 

The site, encom­pass­ing all the area to Wall Street and north to the Central Bank, con­sists of approx­i­mate­ly 51,000 square feet, which is cer­tain­ly large enough to accom­mo­date the six­ty thou­sand square foot build­ing need­ed if con­struct­ed in two sto­ries. A two-or-three sto­ry build­ing there would also allow for a small amount of park­ing on the site. 

The site is cur­rent­ly home to the Family Dollar Store and Kaged Barbell. 

In con­junc­tion with this prop­er­ty, if the area north of Central Bank to Washington Street, and between Maple and Wall Street could be acquired, it would pro­vide near­ly 42,000 square feet for a park­ing lot for the judi­cial cen­ter. It would only be a cou­ple of hun­dred feet away, cer­tain­ly not far­ther than the park­ing lot that serves the present courthouse. 

This site is cur­rent­ly home to Corners Vape Store, JNB Food Mart, and Best Donuts.

This 42,000 square feet would accom­mo­date about 130 park­ing spaces. And a well-land­scaped park­ing lot would do much to improve the appear­ance of that sec­tion of Washington Street. Additionally, the exist­ing park­ing lot across Broadway from the for­mer sheriff’s office, which has tra­di­tion­al­ly been used by cir­cuit clerk staff and dis­trict judge employ­ees, could also be assigned to the new judi­cial cen­ter, yield­ing about 30 more park­ing spaces.

Main Street, Broadway and Church Alley

Another pos­si­bil­i­ty could be the area encom­passed by Main Street, Broadway and Church Alley, north to the north edge of the city park­ing lot. 

This block would pro­vide about 42,000 square feet. If the two build­ings just north of the city park­ing lot could also be acquired, it would add anoth­er 9,000 square feet. But even 42,000 square feet would eas­i­ly accom­mo­date a three-sto­ry build­ing with some addi­tion­al ancil­lary park­ing. Further, a three-sto­ry build­ing at that cor­ner would com­ple­ment the build­ings on the oth­er three cor­ners of Main and Broadway. 

This site is also with­in rea­son­able dis­tance of the jail. To enhance this site and pro­vide the sug­gest­ed park­ing, it might be pos­si­ble to secure the block from Church Alley to Highland and north to the north edge of the city park­ing lot, pro­vid­ing anoth­er 51,000 square feet, enough for about 170 sur­face park­ing spaces. 

While acqui­si­tion of these two parcels would remove the present city park­ing lots, it might be pos­si­ble to des­ig­nate a cer­tain por­tion of the new park­ing lots for pub­lic park­ing to replace the spaces lost.

Limited options available downtown

There can be lit­tle doubt that either of the loca­tions dis­cussed here would do a good deal to enhance the down­town area while, in sev­er­al instances, remove some less-than-har­mo­nious struc­tures from the area.

These are obvi­ous­ly a cou­ple of pie-in-the-sky sug­ges­tions. There may be many issues mit­i­gat­ing against either one, but one thing is quite obvi­ous. There are very few spaces in the down­town area large enough to accom­mo­date a project this size, and there is a very strong desire to con­struct the new judi­cial cen­ter in the down­town area, not only because of tra­di­tion but because the peo­ple who work in the facil­i­ty need to con­tin­ue to be con­trib­u­tors to the down­town econ­o­my as they are now. 

Ancillary to this is the fact that a down­town judi­cial cen­ter will draw those not work­ing down­town to the area as well, sup­port­ing the mer­chants and busi­ness­es there now.

Downtown Winchester is con­sis­tent­ly draw­ing new own­ers and busi­ness­es to the area; a new judi­cial cen­ter in the imme­di­ate area would cer­tain­ly sup­port that process.